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What was your experience on Kevzara?
I am curious about other’s experience with KEVZARA. I am currently taking 11 mg of Prednisone, down from 60 mg in April 2024. I am continuing to experience pain and stiffness daily, especially in the late evening and the morning. I am also fatigued most days. I am on an anti-inflammatory diet, walk daily and do a little restorative yoga. My Rheumatologist suggests going back up to 12.5 mg but I do not think that will be helpful as it will only lengthen the time I am on a drug that appears to not be helpful. She has suggested KEVZARA and we are now waiting on approval from my insurance company. My questions are: should I wait a bit and stay at 11 mg to see if anything changes (I have been on this dose for 4 weeks) before I start KEVZARA? Is it too soon in my treatment to start a biologic? It seems as tho my autoimmune system is not responding to the Prednisone or maybe I need more patience? My doctor was vague on these questions. Thank you in advance, I really appreciate this forum!
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@eparnold0219 I felt like I was ‘bouncing along’ the pain threshold (some pain, but greatly reduced) during my tapering. I did increase P once or twice before getting on Kevzara. During the transition from P to K, I also developed RA with very painful wrists and hands, but this mostly gone away, as I believe Kevzara treats both PMR & RA. One other thing that I believe has really helped is adding turmeric to my diet. Everyone,s journey is different…I hope yours becomes more successful in pain reduction.
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2 Reactions@pjsquared "Bouncing" is a great description! I hope any RA is kept at bay. Wrists, ankles, feet, hands, are the few body parts that don't hurt ...yet. So sorry to hear you developed RA! Glad to know Kevzara works for that too!
@eparnold0219 Kevzara can take up to 3 months to take affect. Maybe don’t rush the prednisone taper.
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1 Reaction1mg per month taper.
@eparnold0219
My rheumatologist put me on 3mg LDN to help with my prednisone taper. I went from 25mg to 5mg in three months. I started kevzara last week.
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1 ReactionThat is a fast taper! Any pain?
O wasn’t able to drop below 10 mg prednisone without getting PMR symptoms. The doctor suggested Kevza
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1 ReactionContinuation of previous message. 🙃it took a month to get approved and to arrive and in the interim I went back up to 15mg. to get rid of the pain. After three weeks on Kevzara I was able to rapidly drop to 1 mg. Unfortunately so did my neutrophils, so I may need to stop the Kevzara.
@eparnold0219
I had to start a fast taper because of a subsequent SMM diagnosis. I have had mild to moderate pain at the start of each decrease which subsided or leveled after a few days. I was doing 2.5mg decreases every 10 days until I reached 10mg, then 0.5mg every 4 days until I reached 5mg. My plan now is for 0.5mg decrease every 7 days, but I will only do another decrease when my body adjusts to the new dose. My hematologist-oncologist needs me to be at or under 5mg prednisone for my next blood work in order to better assess my SMM risk factor. I take the LDN about two hours before bed and it helps me sleep.
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2 Reactions@tonimcbride Lower WBC, CRP and nuetrophils counts are ususal when taking Kevzara I found. I have been taking Kevzara for 3 years with minimal side effects even though the above counts are lower. My biggest issue is with cuts and scrapes where I use an antibiotic ointment to make sure thes do not get out of hand.
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